Declan + Coraline (7 page)

“The sensors are off,” he stated.

“No. You two carry. I doubt a gun will scare him. He knows I can’t just shoot him here. I’ll have to be more…creative.” I adjusted my gloves and stepped off my bike.

Patrick nodded as we turned to walk inside. “I heard most of the crew left him last night. He only has a few friends around him right now. If there’s any trouble, we have people here.”

I paused once we got to his floor. “Well then, why don’t we make some new friends?”

One of the nurses at the station tried to stop me from going in. Eric spoke to her and without any further questions, we went up the elevator. I hated hospitals. It brought back too memories for me, but I was sure that that was why Sedric had sent me here—to make sure I could work in a place I hated and still keep a clear head.

When we opened door, we found that the place was eerily quiet; the nurses all drifted around like ghosts.

“That one,” Eric whispered as he pointed to the room, and I walked on and pushed through the opening of the door.

Otis lay on the bed with his hand in a cast, his face a swollen mess, and a small woman who sat beside him crying. However, neither of them caught my attention. It was Coraline who stood just off to the side, still in that goddamn dress from this afternoon, who surprised me. Her mouth dropped open when she saw me and I was sure that if this were any other place and any other time, I would have shared her astonishment.

However, I ignored her and focused on the man in the bed.

“Hello, Otis,” I said as I walked over to the foot of his bed.

“You two know each other?” The small woman beside him wiped her eyes.

“We go away back. Don’t we, Otis? You ladies mind if I talk to my friend in private? I really want to know who did this to him.” I forced myself to stay focused on the man in front of me.

“Babe, go,” he whispered to the girl beside him.

She looked between us oddly.

“Babe,” he said more sternly.

“Imani, come on, let’s get you something to eat,” Coraline said as she came up beside me, and I wished I could reach out and touch her.

I ignored the urge to look at her as she and her friend left.

“What do you want, Callahan?” Otis asked me. “Breaking my bones wasn’t enough for you people?”

“Are you bitching at me right now? Should I feel bad for the fucking moron who thought he could disrespect my family’s name? You’re lucky bones can heal. If it were me, I would have taken your tongue.” I replied as I grabbed the IV and wrapped it around his neck.

“Agh—” he tried to scream, but I pulled tighter causing him to claw at my hands.

“I’m going to say this once. You have two choices—work for us, or die for them. And remember, if you make the wrong choice, death will come for you in small, painful doses,” I hissed.

I released the line just slightly, but he wasted his words.

“The Seven Bloods will kill me.”

I strangled him again and he gasped as his body rose from the bed.

“Long before the Seven Bloods, and long after your pitiful little rats kill themselves, our family,
our people,
will still motherfucking be here. So again, choose wisely, because as we speak, your club is being burned to the ground.”

His eyes widened as he glared at me. “What do you want?”

“The drugs,” I hissed. “Where did you get them?”

“I don’t—”

“What do you think will snap first, this line or your windpipe?”

“Please…”

“Talk.” I lifted his head up and pulled tight before I allowed the line to go slack.

“There is a man. He’s from Mexico. I don’t know his name, but I will get it, I swear. I’ll get it when I’m out tomorrow.”

“We will be in contact. Until then, rest up. I wonder how they feel having a wounded dog in the house,” I said as I released him completely. He coughed as his good hand reached up to his neck.

“How are you involved with Coraline Wilson?”

He raised his eyebrow at me, confused. “You mean the bitch with the stick up her ass? She ain’t got nothing to do with us. I’m only with her cousin because she said she could help us clean some of our money though her Uncle’s bank.”

“The Seven Bloods are keeping money at WIB? And here I thought you would be useless,” I said emotionlessly, before I kicked his broken arm.

“What the fuck?!” he cried out as he cradled it against his chest.

“Don’t refer to women as
bitches
in front me or I will kill you,” I sneered as I walked to the door.

Eric stood waiting, keeping Otis’ girlfriend at bay. Walking around her, I stopped in front of Coraline.

“Stay away from him, and if you care about your cousin, make sure she stays away too.” That was all I’d planned to say to her. I couldn’t…this was too close. I hadn’t thought these two parts of my life would collide like this. It was a wake-up call. I wasn’t just a guy…even though she made me feel like one. I was a Callahan, and Callahans were monsters in suits.

“Declan?” she called after me.

And I could hear her heels as she followed me towards the elevator.

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with Otis?”

“Just trust me—”

“Well, I don’t. If something’s going on please tell me. Do you know the man who did this? How serious is this?” she said when the elevator doors opened.

The man who did this was my cousin, and the man who would do worse was me.

I wanted her. I wanted her badly, but I couldn’t…what if she saw me doing something even worse or what if she got involved. What if my worlds collided again when she was around?

“Never mind, Coraline.” I sighed as I stepped into the elevator. I shouldn’t have said anything to begin with.

“Declan, why are you being so cold right now?” She frowned, confused. “You’re like a totally different person.”

Because right now I wasn’t me; I was the person the family needed me to be. But I couldn’t tell her that.

“Coraline, you’ve rejected me three times in the last week. I’m not going to keep chasing after you. Please step aside, it’s been a long day.” The doors closed on her and I felt both relieved and disappointed as I leaned against the wall. But then the doors reopened, and as her hand remained on the button, her eyes focused on me.

Coraline, no, keep pushing me away, you’re right, your instincts are right, I will hurt you.

“I’m leaving too,” she lied as her feet crossed over the line toward me.

Fuck.
I was goner. Having her this close to me in an empty elevator, I couldn’t take it.

I grabbed her and pinned her up against the wall.

“You shouldn’t have opened the doors.”

“But I did.” Her brown eyes searched mine.

My eyes fell on her lips. “You should stay away from Otis. Because he has bad friends.”
And I’m the worse one of all.

“Okay?” She still looked confused.

“If I kissed you right now, what would you do?” I whispered.

“Kiss you back.”

“I know. But what would you do after we break away. Run again? Like I said, you don’t know what you want and I’m not going to let you keep messing with me.”

I stepped out of the elevator, and for some reason, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like she had literally been so close to me, she’d stolen the air from my lungs. I had told her the truth, but I’d also lied. I
wanted
to keep chasing after her. But reality was starting to kick in, and the magic was disappearing. Her standing next to Otis as a friend when I came thinking I might just have to end his life…it’d been too close.

I made it outside when my phone rang.

“Declan,” I muttered without bothering to check the caller ID.

“I’ll stay away from Otis,” she whispered into the phone and I turned back to find her still inside the entrance of the hospital staring back me. “I don’t have a boyfriend, a fiancé, or a husband. I had my heart broken by a smooth talking playboy once before. So I’m a little jaded. I don’t want be just another girl you screw around with or screw over. That’s why I’ve been pushing you away, but I really do like you.”

Walk away, Declan.

“What do I have to do?” I said instead, and it was like my mind and heart had officially declared war on each other.

“I don’t know?”

“Why don’t we get out of here and find out?” I felt like I could think better if I didn’t have to think about the worst part of me…or maybe I was trying to not think at all.

“You lead, I’ll follow.” She stepped towards me.

“No.” I shook my head as I moved towards her. “You’re the one doing the leading. It’s been like that from day one.”

“Well, take over then,” she said right in front of me as she hung up.

“With pleasure.”

CORALINE

“You can open your eyes now.”

“Did we stop?” I was too afraid to look, and my grip on him tightened.

I could feel his chest moving up and down in front of me, and I knew he was silently laughing. We’d taken his motorcycle instead of my car. I wanted to fight him on the matter since I was still in a dress, but he reached over, hiked it up, and reassured me that I would be fine. Luckily, I was able to change out of my heels and into the flats I kept in my car.

Peeking out, I noticed he had stopped and where now at the Navy Pier. He stepped off first and I as quickly and gracefully as I could, I swept my legs over, closing them shut when they were on the other side. He smiled as he offered me his hand.

Taking it, he led us over to the Ferris wheel that lit up the night’s sky.

“Declan.” I gasped when he skipped the line.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied as the man behind the machine nodded to him. I felt the need to wave or apologize to the people who were standing in line, but I was in the gondola before I had the chance.

“Callahans make their own rules, remember?” he said as the wheel shifted, allowing the next people who were in line to step into their own gondola.

“Yeah, but people will think that you Callahans are assholes.”

He shrugged. “Who cares what other people think? That’s the problem with the world, everyone is so worried about what someone, who doesn’t even know them, thinks. As long as you don’t think I’m an asshole, then I’m fine.”

“What makes you think I don’t?” I crossed my arms.

“Would you have preferred to come all the way here and wait in line for an hour?”

He had a point and he knew it. I agreed.

“Fine. You’re not an asshole to me.”

“Perfect. Now tell me about the idiot who broke your heart.”

I groaned as I glanced out at the pier. Why had I brought that up? Oh right, I was worried that he would’ve walked away for good, and I didn’t want that.

“Coraline, you said you were jaded, but we all are,” he whispered.

“Two years ago, while at Stanford, I met this basketball player, which really should have been the first red flag. I knew he liked to party a lot, but I thought he was different, and I thought we were dating, but as it turns out, he only acted like we were together when we were alone and it was great. But around his friends, or at his games, he acted like I was just another girl he knew. Then the season got really intense. I knew that other girlfriends would sneak to their hotels during away games. So I decided to surprise him.”

“And he was with someone else?” he asked like this was the most common story in the world, but then again it felt like it was.

I smiled. “He was with two other girls. I stood there staring in shock before I turned and ran—I’m a runner in case you haven’t noticed. He did chase me down an hour later, I’m guessing after he was finished with them. He told me that I was his
long-term chick
, the girl he would bring home to mom and that I shouldn’t be bothered by the other girls, that he was just playing around before we got too serious. That’s when I punched him and took the bus home. The end.”

“Did you love him?” His eyes were soft, and he looked my face over like he was trying to read me.

“Yeah. I think so? I’m not sure. I think I was in love with believing in love.”

“So after that, you just cut yourself off from any sort of affection whatsoever?”

I didn’t want to go this deep into my emotions.

“You said we’re all jaded, so tell me, who hurt you?”

He smiled, and under the light of the Ferris Wheel, he looked sinful and devious.

“I’ve never been in love before.”

“But you said—”

“I said we are all jaded. But not everyone is jaded by love, Coraline. I’ve never given my heart anyone, which should prove that there is something wrong with me. People should fall in love and deal with heartbreak, I think it’s healthy.”

“But…”

“But I’m not going to force myself to love anyone or anything. When it happens, it happens.”

“Then what makes you jaded?”

“My past. My present. My future.”

“Sometimes I feel like you’re trying to tell me something without really telling me anything.”

He snickered as he pulled off his gloves. “I like you, Coraline. I have no idea why, but I do, and I want to get know you more because I feel like it’s happening…at least for me anyway. I’m going on a trip in a couple days, so come with me. And promise to make sure you have fun from the moment we get there.”

“Okay.”

FIVE

“And she was terribly aware that she was alive. Not just living and breathing, but ...alive.”

―Mary Balogh

DECLAN

“I would like to remind you that you only met this woman a week ago and you’re already bailing out on our plans,” Liam said over the phone.

“Aren’t you in bed with a model right now?”

“That’s beside the point,” he said. “We don’t ditch each other for women.”

“In all honesty, I’m tired of seeing your face, Liam.”

“You know what? I hope she breaks your heart into ten thousand pieces.”

“I’m hanging up, ass.” I hung up before he could reply.

I pulled up in front of the WIB cooperate office just as she came out dressed in a cream-colored jacket, jeans, and flats. I’d offered to pick her up at home, but she said she had a quick errand to run at the office.